I Am Canadian.

I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I love being Calgarian, I love being Albertan, and I love being Canadian. Calgary is the best city, Alberta is the best province, and Canada is the best country. 
The thing about Canada, though, is that we’re a mosaic, not a melting pot. This is great, but it means that as a Canadian, my culture is a combination of three things:

1. Accurate Canadian stereotypes like being polite.

2. Not being American.

3. My ancestor’s culture.

My background is 3/4 English, 1/8 Irish, and 1/8 Ukrainian. My mum was born in England, my paternal grandmother’s realities came from Ireland, and my paternal grandfather’s grandparents emigrated from the Ukraine. I want to learn as much as I can about English, Irish, and Ukrainian culture. I’ve only been to England. I’d love to go again, and also love to visit Ireland. Visiting the Ukraine isn’t something I can do, at least not for several decades, but maybe I’ll get to visit one day. Apparently, I still have family out there.

I love visiting America, but I’m a lot happier when I avoid American media. (Thank you, POTUS Race 2016!). The CRTC tries to help Canadians with this by encouraging Canadian TV and film and limiting American TV and film, but I don’t view creative works as American (For example, Disney is American; it’s the brainchild of Walt Disney who happened to be American). 

What’s actually American are most trending topics online, such as current events and celebrity news. I’m learning to not pay attention to those.

Also, some American English has unfortunately snuck into Canadian English, but I try to substitute British words, spelling, and sometimes pronunciation whenever I can.

Now, American English, American current events, and American pop culture are just minor inconveniences that are easily avoidable, but some of America’s other problems are just awful. Four words: Lack of gun control. I can’t talk about this better than Jim Jefferies so I’ll just leave this here. That Trump has gotten so far in his campaign makes it clear why America’s gun laws will never change.

I have friends who actually live in America. They’re braver than I am! I’d never be able to live there. I love Canada too much, particularly the Rocky Mountains, our skill hills, our healthcare system, our rational approach to gun violence, and our political system. I’m not writing about how awesome Canada is to encourage post-POTUS Election migration, by the way. If you’re an American and you’re thinking about doing that, please click here.